The Clifton clarion., 1887-08-17
Extra Session of Congress.


 WASHINGTON, July 2S, 1sS7.-The' Journal Clerk of the Senate, Henry H. Smith, has prepared an inter esting paper on the extra sessions of Congress. It appears that there have been held since the adoption of the Constitution eleven extra sessions of Congress, and that these have been called by eight Presi- dents. namely, John Adams, Jef- ferson, Madison, Van Buren, liar rison, Pierce, Lincoln and Hayes each called Congress in extra ses- sion twice. The longest extra ses- sion was that called by President Madison, which convened Novem- Der 4, 1911. This session continued for 245 days, and authorized a declaration of war against Great Britain. The shortest. extra ses. sion was that convened by Presi- dent Pierce on August 21, 1856, in consequence of the failure of the Army Appropriation bill. This session continued only ten days. :.
 Until 1920 the "short session" of Congress usually began in October or on the first Monday in Novem- Der, thus securing a longer session by a full month than under the present provisions of law in refer. ence to crowding important busi- ness into the closing short hours of the regular session, thus making imminent the danger of anextra. session.
 MT. Smith says the Senate is fairly entitled to receive appro- priation bills las it cannot orig mate them) sufficiently early in the session to give them careful con sideration, and beyong all question the President should have an op- portunity to examine them as we'll as other measures without undue haste. Surely the President should have few days in which to ex- anime and consider the various measures presented to him which have received weeks and months even of consideration by the legis- lative department of the Goverus ment.
 It is an open secret that Presi- dent Grant signed the last sheet of the Sundry Civil bill of the second session of the Forty-fourth' Con- gress before its enrolment, and that after the expiration of that Congress, it was enrolled under the supervision of two Congresses -one from each House-on that bill, and it is also further open secret that during the last twenty years many general appropriations have been presented to the Presi- dent by the House Committee on Enrolled Bills without being ex- amined or compared with the or it being a physical im- possibility, in the brief time re- before final adjournment, to make such examination or com parison. The wonder should be-, therefore, not that so many, but rather that so few, mistakes have been made by the enrolling clerks.
 Mir. Perfecto Carrero, member of the state legislature of Oaxaca, has made voyage to the City of Mexico with the object of subject ng to chemical enalysis a plant known for its marvellous virtues the Mixtic Indians by the name of ''the divining herb" The Indians take it in varing doses and l few minutes afterwards pass in % a sleep that has all the symp- ;oms of hypnotism or mesmeric' state. The person under the in 1uence of the herb becomes sub ect to the will of any spectator. He can be compelled to do any of he usual phenomena of the so- ,alled m1nd reading or animal and after the effects; ,f the medicines have passed away le knows nothing of what may lave occurred. a.
 Here is story of a Boston boy rom the Boston Transcript: